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any parish of the diocese, they
would be found the most pious
and godly people there.". - "That
I deny," said his Grace, with an
emphasis truly logical. His Grace
also objected to these serious men
in neglecting their business to run
after preaching; to which I an-
swered, that this was not acting
in a manner necessary to their opi-
nions, but contradictory to them,
for which they were reprehensible;
and as far as they are under the
influence of their religious prin-
ciples, they will mind their secular
business from considerations of
duty. Finding his Grace still
averse to ordaining me, at length
I laid one hand on the Prayer-
Book, and raised the other di-
rectly before his Lordship, with
this application :
this application: "My Lord, I
now formally and solemnly re-
quest your Lordship, as the head
and guardian of a church of which
these are articles of faith, to admit
me a minister of that church, upon
believing them."-Abp. " Oh! no!
no! no! Sir; that's rather too
much; that's telling me my duty.
Sir, you know Mr. Hill of Cam-
bridge, don't you?"
"Yes, my
Lord.' "And used to attend his
conventicles ?" "Not as conven-
ticles, my Lord."-
"For what pur-
pose then?"
"My Lord, I used-
to go to hear him speak.”-
Abp. "Ay, go to hear him speak!
that's one of your cant phrases."
"But, my Lord, even in this I
regarded the censure of my supe-
riors, and was not prevented going
under restrictions."-Abp.
"But
why did you go at all?"
cause I found instruction from it,
my Lord, and benefit to my mind."

can't understand." 66
My Lord,
if you do not understand, it is
perhaps because I don't speak
clearly; but if I do not, my whole
meaning lies in the Articles.”-
Abp. "But you do not take the
Articles in their true sense.' 99 66
My
Lord, the Act of Parliament pre-
fixed to them directs us to under-
stand them in the plain, literal,
grammaticul sense." "Ay, the
Act of Parliament, the Act of
Parliament; I don't care for the
Act of Parliament. I appeal to
the Scriptures." "So do I, my
Lord."" But your Scriptures are
detached sentences." "My Lord,
indeed, upon examination, my
sentiments will be found to accord
with the tenor of Scripture."-
Abp. "Sir, you should study the
attributes of God and the nature
of man, and then you will judge
otherwise." 66
My Lord, it might
be proved that these things agree
to both."-"That I deny," an-
swered his Grace.
"But pray,
Sir, how is a man to be saved? by
doing as much as he can, and
trusting to the merits of Christ for
the rest?"" 66
No, my Lord; I
apprehend man's imperfect obe-
dience has no hand in his salva-
tion, and that according to such
a scheme no one would be saved,
because no one does as well as
he can; but the righteousness of
Christ imputed to me, and appre-
hended by faith, is, in my opinion,
the alone cause of our justifica-
tion.". 66
Stop, Sir; gently over
the stones. The righteousness of
Christ imputed to a man! only
think a moment where that tends:
then I shall want no righteousness
of my own." "Oh! my Lord,
this is the perversion, not the ten-Abp. "Why, Sir, Mr. Hill was
dency of the doctrine: the faith here on your errand, and was re-
that apprehends it is nothing at fused. He told me, indeed, that
all but a delusion, if it produce if he might not preach with my
not good works. But would your authority, in conscience he might
Lordship only take the pains to preach without it; but I could
inquire concerning the persons not help that."." My Lord, I do
who entertain this doctrine of not approve his conduct, nor think
Christ's imputed righteousness, in it such as I ought to have imi-

"Be

tated."-Abp. "Well, Sir, I can say nothing to you; there is Mr. Stillingfleet, to whom you was going; he is, I believe, a good man, but, in my opinion, mistaken as well as you. But, for my part, I confess I cannot understand what you mean; and that's a material thing to me, respecting your business: for, as I may presume to suppose myself a man of common, plain understanding, and yet cannot comprehend you, I may surely conclude the people to whom you will minister would not understand you; so that I cannot in conscience ordain you. Besides, these errors you embrace, I consider not as indifferent, but as fundamental errors; indeed, Sir, I do; and I cannot permit you to broach them in my diocese, by my authority. Go home, Sir, it may be-for you are young yet-that, in the revolution of your ideas, things may appear to you very differently from what they do now. Think more of the attributes of God and the moral constitution of man. I do not therefore refuse, I only postpone your ordination. Come to me with different sentiments, and you may expect favour." "My Lord, if this be your real reason and opinion, I cannot expect you should ordain me to broach fundamental errors; it would be a violation of your Lordship's conscience to do it.""Indeed, Sir," (said the Archbishop,) I esteem them such; I had much rather do it than decline it. You know not how unhappy it makes me to send you away; but I must do so." (This scene was most affecting.) The Archbishop proceeded: "God forbid that I should harm any one because he does not think as I do, Sir; such is the frailty of human nature, God only knows, you may be right, and I in the wrong; though at these years, and after all my reading and experience, I can hardly think it: and what ap

pears to me right, makes the contrary appear wrong to me; nor can I act but by what I think to be right."

In the course of this interview, his Lordship told me he was sorry the trouble of coming down into Yorkshire was given me, and had he known any thing of me by a letter lately sent him, sooner than three days ago, my journey should have been wholly prevented. Here, it is plain, my irregularity in preaching (which was recanted in form at college, and desisted from about four years since) was unknown to his Lordship, and not contained in the letter: for, without doubt, had it been contained there, preaching in my own person, more than attending Mr. Hill in his preachings, would have been laid to my charge. But of this, not a syllable fell from his Lordship. One thing more I have to add, that when the Archbishopi alleged my bringing detached sentences to prove my opinions, it was answered, (besides what was mentioned before,) that these very texts I had read even so very late as that day in coming over the fields to Brodsworth, in Welchman, upon the thirty-nine articles, who was no Methodist, but cites these very passages as the great proof of our articles.

Musing, on my return home to the Hampall Inn, concerning what had passed, one thing afflicted me; the concession which I made to his Lordship, that I could not expect him to ordain me, if he really thought my principles fun-> damentally erroneous, though yet this concession could not affect my fate, which was already determined. Nothing, therefore, remained but a letter to remedy this slip, and at the same time to hint to his Lordship, how, if he pleased, ordination might be given as a right which he only distributed, and as a claim which he might fulfil, though reluctantly and with

some wish to the contrary. Accordingly, the following short epistle, which observes, I hope, as it was designed, all due modesty and distance, was sent the next day by a messenger to his Grace. The answer given was, that the Archbishop had told me his sentiments the preceding day, and saw no reason to alter them.

66

My Lord, Hampall Inn, Yorkshire. "It would be an addition to my present uneasiness to have this paper considered as deficient in that humility and deference which are due to your Lordship's high office and dignity. Such a surmise can never be just, while I possess the sense of your Lordship's tenderness, which was inspired by that affecting scene of conscience, struggling with compassion, which I yesterday beheld at Brodsworth. Not without hope, however, that the former may yet embrace the latter, I here cast at your Lordship's feet the following argument, which I could not have delivered so clearly in person, as I trust it now lies in writing. If the Church of England gives a right to any one of admission into her holy orders on producing the appointed testimonials of age, learning, and morality, and withal on subscribing the plain, literal, grammatical sense of the Articles, I am entitled to such an admission; and if these Articles do not make a sufficient provision against fundamental errors, the fault lies in the constitution of our church, and not in an administration agree able to that constitution of our church: so that whatever objections may be conceived against my opinions, I may still claim a right which these opinions do not destroy. And the fears that may arise from the supposed bad effects consequent on granting me that right, should not more exclude me from obtaining it, than even rea sonable apprehensions in a Court

of Chancery, that extravagance and profligacy would follow in making an equitable decree in fávour of an appellant, should induce that court to make an inequitable decree. Would your Lordship do me the high honour and favour of weighing this argument, and not consider it as immodest, but only as an opportunity offered of showing me that pity which my expenses, distresses, and character invoke, so as to admit me into deacon's orders, a probationer only for those of a priest, I should for ever be, my Lord, your Lordship's most obedient and dutiful servant,

"T. P."

Upon this conference I would propose an essential question: Whether the Bishops are thus to be sole judges of truth and error? If they are not, I am an injured man. If they are supposed such, I would beg leave to enter the following caveat:-That the judgment of Bishops must be precarious; the result of reading will be different, according to their different strength of reasoning faculties, and the degree in which those faculties are used: it will be different according as they, read more or less, or according to the particular sort of books they read, and their own particular turn of mind. It will also be different according to their various preponderations and prejudices acquired in their particular forms and places of education. Or the judgment of Bishops may be diversified according to their various interests, and the complexion of the times in which they live. In short, it may be as different in many men, or even in the same man, as the number and kind of connexions into which each may fall, which is infinite.. Aud if so, what is national, established, endowed orthodoxy? The thirty-nine articles, which have been erected into a criterion of

such orthodoxy, and which are the sworn, if not the true creed of every Bishop on the bench, instead of being a fixed, lasting, steady test for all to appeal to, are as changing as the sea, in several states at several times, as a Bishop or the moon comes to the meridian. In this condition of things, however Arminian the standard of faith might be, if the Bishop's judgment be Calvinisti

cal, none but Calvinists shall enter the church, and vice versa. What is truth? would be an ignorant question: it would resemble a ball rolling between two men from right to left, or from left to right, according to the side they are of; and answer to the definition of an abstract idea, being neither this thing, that, nor the other, but comprehending all, and applicable to either of them.

ORIGINAL ESSAYS, COMMUNICATIONS, &c.

ON PERNICIOUS PRINCIPLES.

Part II.—continued. Religious Procrastination. "No man can come unto me, except

the Father who hath sent me draw him."

or

ANCIENT history informs us of a luxurious and licentious prince, who, on a day of unrestrained festivity, was rioting with his courtiers in the amplest indulgence of mirth and voluptuousness, when a messenger arrived with intelligence of the most serious importance to his person and government. But he refused an audience to the messenger, even to be informed of the purport of his message, exclaiming, "Serious things to-morrow!" But, before the morrow came, the invading enemy had gained possession of his city and palace, and had slain the miserable victim of procrastination. But are there not living and walking among us, and passing too for sound and sensible men, persons who are constantly acting upon a more irrational and more ruinous procrastination than even that of the effeminate heathen-persons whose unfeeling folly is risking an immortal hell or heaven on the

issue of "a more convenient season," which it is ten thousand to one they will never see-persons

who are behaving to their Almighty Creator and Sovereign with a cold and contemptuous insult, deferring to an undefined urgent messages of authority and to-morrow any just attention to his condescending goodness?

66

Yet this is, without the smallest exaggeration, the conduct of those who are living upon the expectation that, at some future time, a more convenient season will arrive. This has been brought forwards, in a former paper, as the second principal instance of radical errors which extensively prevail, and which men love and cherish as a light that is in them," while it is in reality the greatest and most destructive darkness. We have shown, by proofs, I trust, very sufficient, that this course of proceeding is so precarious and hazardous as to be contrary to all the principles of rational action in the ordinary affairs of life. In particular, we have intreated such persons to consider their scheme with reference to the uncertainty and extreme improbability of being executed which attaches to every plan, especially if in its own nature it be complicated and difficult, that depends upon an unknown futurity; we have urged them to reflect, as they are at present unwilling to love, obey, and honour God, that, upon all

the principles of human nature, the likelihood of their ever becoming less unwilling is rapidly diminishing and vanishing away; we have also represented to them that they are destroying all rational hope of their recovery and salvation, inasmuch as, by continuing in a state of sin, they are subjecting themselves more completely to the will and the dominion of those apostate spirits whose restless wickedness and insatiable cruelty lead them to employ their utmost skill and activity to infatuate, seduce into sin, and plunge into damnation, those who yield to their influence: and, finally, we have stated the fact, more terrible still, that those who thus put off a serious attention to their everlasting concerns, are treating the infinite God with most daring contempt and insult, violating his laws and rejecting his grace, while yet they expect that, whenever it may be convenient to them to ask him, he will be obliged to pardon their aggravated crimes, and receive them, without scruple, to the arms of his mercy.

All this has been urged, upon the admission of the principle which is taken for granted by those who are acting upon this guilty intention, namely, that they have the will and power to repent, turn to God, and obtain the blessings of salvation, at any time when their selfish ends may be answered by their so doing. But this assumed principle we believe to be UTTERLY FALSE, and that consequently it will completely deceive all who trust to it. To the proof of this, I now request your especial attention. And Thou, O Spirit of Truth, graciously deign to banish every pre judice, to correct every error, to instruct every mind; and let not the light that is in us be darkness! A full and decisive contradiction to this dangerous assumption lies in the words of our gracious

and unerring Teacher: "No man can come unto me, except the Father who hath sent me draw him," &c. It is manifest, from the explications given by the Lord Jesus, in this and other discourses recorded by the evangelist John, that the expression, coming to Christ, signifies whatever act of mind is necessary for receiving him as our Saviour and Lord, and obtaining the actual possession of those blessings in which salvation consists. It is otherwise called, in the sacred Scriptures, believing in Christ, receiving Christ, trusting in him, looking to him, fleeing for refuge to the hope set before us, obeying from the heart the doctrine of the Gospel: it is the performance of that act which is necessary for our personal acquisition of the spiritual and eternal salvation, of which Jesus, the divine Messiah, is the author and bestower. Now, he tells us that "no one can" perform this act, "unless drawn by the Father." It would be absurd to understand this drawing, in a literal sense, as signifying the application of outward force: it is a metaphorical and very intelligible expression to denote the attraction of the soul; the persuading and inducing of the mind, with all its faculties of choice, activity, and delight; that act of God's gracious power, which is thus expressed in his word by the prophets; " I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love.-Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee." Hos. xi. 4; Jer. xxxi. 3. It is further evident, that our Lord meant a rational and spiritual influence upon the faculties of the mind, from this, that he instantly supports and explains his assertion by referring to the promise of divine teaching, ver. 45.; and to teach is to make a person understand and act according to the design of the teacher.

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